An op/ed from Steve Anderson, published a little late, but it's relevant nonetheless.
by Steve Anderson
Several major media mergers are threatening to make the Canadian media scene an even more-concentrated affair. A few examples: CTVglobemedia has inhaled CHUM (with Rogers taking the spoils), Alliance Atlantis is on the brink of becoming a part of Canwest, and Quebecor Media is poised to take over Osprey Media.
The folks at Democratic Media are asking for help in pushing the CRTC to stop the rollback of media ownership regulations.
BoingBoing calls the RCTV decision "a political decision through which Chavez seeks to gain total control of the basic freedoms of the country's citizens."
Is that sort of like a military coup that overthrows a democratically elected government?
FAIR makes the obvious point that if a television channel participated in a military coup against an elected government in the US (or Canada, I'd say), its proprietors would be put in jail.
In this case, nothing like that is being proposed. It's a simple matter of revoking the broadcasting license of a channel that did in fact support a military coup against an elected government.
Bill Moyers' documentary about "how the media got it so wrong on Iraq" will apparently be available to view on the PBS web site after it is broadcast tonight.
I would imagine it will have some relevance to contemporary coverage of, say, Afghanistan.
Justin Podur criticized the Toronto Star's Middle East Bureau Chief for using racist language, and Potter responded, and then so did Podur.
Back in September, the Globe and Mail's Marina Jimenez published a ridiculous attack on a Lancet study that showed the extent of the political violence that followed the Canadian-backed 2004 coup d'etat in Haiti. The Dominion pointed this out in a media analysis piece.
Now, four months later, Marina Jimenez (to her partial credit) has published a piece noting that after reviewing the study, the Lancet has found that the study was in fact sound, and the editorial board of the prestigious medical journal stands by its conclusions.
It has been repeated ad nauseum that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be "wiped off the map". It has been said before that the quote is not accurate, but now there's a word by word translation of what Ahmadinejad actually did say.
The author runs a web site about Mohammad Mossadegh, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran that was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup in 1953. This event, which led to the brutal militar
The press has repeated, ad nauseum, that the Serbian Radical Party, which won a plurality of seats in yesterday's election, is "ultra-nationalist", and in a few cases "far right". Unfortunately, there's almost no information about their positions or policies, other than they're against European integration and the extradition of General Ratko Mladic to the Hague.
On the second point, it's hard to argue with them. If one wishes to enforce international law, the way to do it is not to set up a US-funded kangaroo court that refuses outright to try war criminals on both sides. That's not justice, that's a farce. Enforcing international law is a great idea; enforcing it selectively just means it's not law and it's not international. And it's hard to get excited about non-international non-law.
Credit to the BBC for not only not using (at least in that article) the term "ultranationalist" to deride the Serbian Radical Party, which appears to be on its way to winning the elections (but probably not the government) in Serbia today, as many outlets undoubtedly will. The BBC gets extra points for alluding to the small fact that NATO dropped 20,000 tonnes of bombs on the country might have an effect on whether the majority of Serbs are willing to sacrifice their well-being to join the EU.
In today's Globe, Bruce Konviser hits all the major notes of Globe and Mail foreign coverage: unspecified "pro-western reforms" are good, "nationalism" is "destabilizing", and why should any facts get in the way of us reporting that story once again.
I forgot the most important one: history doesn't exist, and if it does, it doesn't matter.
(For a long, fascinating, historical take on whether Serbia should join the EU, check out this essay of sorts by John Bosnitch)
The Associated Press and AFP are reporting that four workers are dead and twenty-five injured in a major construction accident.
What none of the agencies (so far, that I've seen) are saying is that an accident this bad was pretty much inevitable, given the sub-human treatment of migrant workers who are building Dubai, and the incredibly strenuous conditions and long hours they are forced to work.
This Reuters story starts by saying...
Villagers in Shebaa were grateful to Hezbollah guerrillas for forcing out Israel. Now, some say Nasrallah's image has been damaged by the campaign he is leading against a government which they support.
...but ends by saying that "some" are religious leaders who are probably getting paid to oppose Hezbollah:
In Shebaa, some Sunni clerics and other local leaders have started criticizing Hezbollah, villagers said. "They are trying to impose sectarianism under financial incentives or ideological pressure," Ali said. "Frankly, it's political money."
Mark Mackinnon sent in the highlighted article excerpt in response to the ongoing discussion about Mark MacKinnon's coverage in Lebanon.
For his remarks, read the discussion.
* * *
From "Hezbollah protestors rally against government," by Mark MacKinnon.
Published in The Globe and Mail on Dec. 2, 2006.
(snip)
The demonstrators accused the government, which has supported international calls for Hezbollah to surrender its weapons, of being run by the U.S. embassy. "Down with Feltman's government!" was a popular chant, referring to Jeffery Feltman, the U.S. ambassador.
The following is a list of all the quotes (or near-quotes) I could find in nineteen articles written by Mark MacKinnon about the situation in Lebanon over a three week period. This serves as an appendix of sorts to our response to MacKinnon's response to the recent analysis of MacKinnon's reporting. But it also provides a degree of insight into how systematically MacKinnon avoids any discussion of the motivation factors behind the massive demonstrations that are still occupying downtown Beirut.
Yesterday, the Globe and Mail published a half-decent piece about the sit ins in Beirut. I can't help but wonder if the sudden improvement in coverage (which is to say, conformity with well-established facts) had something to do with this analysis that the Dominion published two weeks ago of Mark Mackinnon's wildly misleading coverage of the same protests.
The crux of that analysis was that Mark Mackinnon probably wouldn't mind telling the truth, but likes having his job and pleasing his editors better than he likes telling the truth. (Not unlike a lot of people, probably...) And that, given the opportunity, Mackinnon probably wouldn't have a personal problem with reporting accurately. It's just that when his editors want something different, his career takes precedence.
Haiti Analysis is a new website featuring writing and, well, analysis about the political situation in Haiti. They're off to a good start, with a decent article on So Ann's visit to New York by Kim Ives.
“We are wasters of power,” she said of the Lavalas movement generally. “Several times we have taken it and each time we waste it.”
She reproached Préval for consorting with imperialism and playing into Washington’s game of repressing the masses and implementing neoliberal reforms such as privatization of key state-owned companies.
The Dominion is a monthly paper published by an incipient network of independent journalists in Canada. It aims to provide accurate, critical coverage that is accountable to its readers and the subjects it tackles. Taking its name from Canada's official status as both a colony and a colonial force, the Dominion examines politics, culture and daily life with a view to understanding the exercise of power.